Cuban political prisoner Osvaldo Rodriguez Acosta last week started a hunger strike after officials blocked his wife and younger son from visiting him and his older son, also a political prisoner, in jail.

When his wife, Juana Castillo, complained, a State Security official warned her that if she didn’t shut up, she herself could end up in prison. (She is currently serving a type of probation handed down last year, at the same time her husband and son were sentenced to prison.)

To emphasize their point, on Jan. 11 officials transferred the elder Rodriguez to a punishment cell. That’s when he started his hunger strike.

Rodriguez, leader of the Patrioic Alliance Movement in the town of Bejucal, and his son, Osvaldo Rodríguez Castillo, were convicted last year of trumped-up charges, after police in 2012 raided their home. The younger Rodríguez was sentenced to five years in prison, and Juana Castillo, was sentenced to 5 years of labor without incarceration.